Cancel Culture

By Marissa Anne
(2020)

Whether you prefer the term “#_iscancelled” or “_isoverparty”, cancel culture

is the public way of blocking someone from having a credible public platform or
career. It usually comes up after someone does something that gains them criticism.
This usually entails celebrities or politicians who have said or done something that is
seen as offensive, inappropriate or morally wrong. Once this mistake has been
picked up by the media and social sites, that’s when the public “gets to decide that
the person is cancelled”, effectively removing their rights as people; to make a living
in their chosen career path and to make mistakes. We have seen it play out for
years, from the exclusion of certain people in our games at the playground because
they like to pick their nose to the refusal to offer someone a spot in your group
project because he/she is a notorious slacker.

While these actions have not explicitly cancelled them, it is a start in our ability
to accept exclusion based on what we define as “acceptable behaviour”. Cancelling
someone is not much different from boycotting them – it’s a refusal to engage with
them or anything related to them. Despite it starting out as a form of social justice –
to call out socially unacceptable behaviour with the intention of creating a change,
like the #MeToo Movement – it has now spiralled into cyberbullying, cyber shaming
and cyber abuse. Trolls are now flooding social media platforms with the intention of
shaming, blaming and harassing.

Let’s take for example Vivy Yusof, who has been criticised over and over
again for her choice of words and more recently, gave cause for the hashtag
#VivyYusofIsOverParty to trend on Twitter. She is a Malaysian entrepreneur, co-
founder of FashionValet and the dUck Group, mother of three, wife, daughter and a
human being. As a result of comments that seemed to be judgmental of people who
are less fortunate than herself, she received a cascade of backlash on all her social
media platforms. She eventually went on to release a tearful apology on her
Instagram account, both to clarify the misunderstandings against her as well as to
ask people to, “if anything, choose to be kind”.

From the way she wrings her fingers together to the tremor in her voice, it
doesn’t take a certified psychologist to know that the backlash has taken a toll on
her. Remember how it felt to receive criticism from your parents for not doing
something right? Or to hear untrue rumours about yourself spread amongst your
classmates? Now, imagine that, multiplied by the number of people in the country,
then again by the number of social media accounts one person could have. That’s a
lot of hate, more than any one person should have to deal with.

On one hand, it could be used as a powerful tool against people as

problematic as sexual predators, on the other, we are using it to take to our Twitter
accounts to slam a mother of three for not choosing her words wisely. Instead of
creating a story of transformation, we are creating a platform for punishment and
public shaming. As most cancel culture is directed at celebrities, people with
powerful platforms and even bigger fan bases, it is often easy to forget that these
people are human too.

It may seem like a small issue to be compared to other issues in the world, for
example Covid-19, but many people have committed suicide as a result of bullying,
abuse and public shaming. The World Health (WHO) Organisation estimates that the
number of deaths as a result of suicide will increase to one every 20 seconds. In the
past 45 years, suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. These statistics for
suicide are shocking and while it is not “cancel culture”, per se, that is causing the
increasing in suicide rates across the world, we cannot rule out the fact that it is a
factor.

With the deaths of K-POP sweethearts, Sulli and subsequently Goo Hara,
who were both subjected to incredible amounts of unwarranted hatred online, as well
as British presenter, Caroline Flack, and not to mention countless of other people
who have taken their own lives after experiencing online bullying. By realising that a
more transformational approach with the understanding that, in the same way that
we need the space to honour our feelings of sadness and anger, they need to be
given more compassion to allow them to change. This will ensure that people are still
held accountable without the need to resort to such toxic behaviour.

Adapted from https://www.likely.com.my/vivy-yusofs-tearful-apology-reminds-

us-that-covid-19-is-not-the-only-disease-that-needs-a-cure/